


Peace of Mind and Cat Stevens Songs

by michals



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Father Figures, Father-Son Relationship, Fix-It, Sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 04:42:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10869339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michals/pseuds/michals
Summary: Fix-It fic post Vol. 2. Peter can't sleep after everything that's gone down, there's someone he's got to check on.





	Peace of Mind and Cat Stevens Songs

**Author's Note:**

> I don't ever write stuff like this but I just couldn't help it after that movie - they got me good. Just outright sappy father & son dynamic with Peter and Yondu and hell, even Rocket.

Peter feels itchy. Not like - skin itchy, but restless and...unsettled. There's a nagging feeling that he's not where he's supposed to be and _dammit_ it's making it hard to sleep.

He swings his legs over the side of the bed and groans. Besides the itchy, fidgety feeling he's still got all that "used to be a god and now suddenly he's mortal and got thrown around a collapsing planet" thing going on. Lotta good that whole immortal hoo-ha was; only got to enjoy it for about half a day and he's gonna be a little bitter about that, thanks.

His ribs feel like little plaster pieces under the muscle, like they've all been knocked loose and snapped in pieces. Rocket showed him the x-ray, said there's only two broken but Peter definitely questioned his counting before Rocket snatched it away from him. He's bruised from ankle to elbow, but otherwise everything else is intact. He just feels like he's been sent through a black hole backwards _and_ forwards is all. And he has a headache.

He slowly rises to his feet, lets the cloudy feeling pass and shuffles around his room a bit. Nothing proves interesting, nothing screams at him as The Thing that's keeping him up. He takes a sip of water, and then another, then chugs the whole thing and wishes it were something stronger and accepts that thirst isn't the problem.

He opens the door to his room - his new room, his hopefully temporary room that once used to be his home - and steps out. The front half of the Ravager ship is old news. He remembers bolting down these hallways as a kid, running from crew members he'd pissed off for some reason or another. Usually, he'll concede, because of some prank or joke or whatnot he'd pulled. Yondu was always the one to catch him, snarl that maybe this time he should just eat him.

Peter walks gingerly down the hall, every step jostling some tender spot along his body. Every couple yards he stops to catch his breath, looking out across familiar doors and corridors. Then again, for every time Yondu threatened to throw him to the wolves that were his crew, Peter remembers a sharp whistle and the Yaka arrow flying this close to the eyeball of anyone that took their petty revenge too far and got too close to Peter.

For years Peter dismissed it time and time again as nothing more than Yondu protecting his investment. What good's a scrawny little thief that's missing his fingers? Or his head.

Halfway down the main hallway that leads to the individual rooms Peter comes up to the door he's looking for. He doesn't spare formality when he slaps a hand against the door; gives a garbled "Hey!" before pressing the door open.

Yondu's been given what probably amounts to a sickbay on a normal ship. This being a Ravager ship and not even the whole of one at that, it's mostly a grimy little room where the medicines and bandages are kept along with a couple of low to the ground beds that are just the tiniest bit more comfortable than the floor. The chart of Ravager injury basically goes from 1 to 10: 1 being an injury that can, and will, be walked off and 10 being a thoughtful shrug, a pat on the back, and a trip out the airlock.

Rocket's done some work to make the place a little more functional. Fixed the heat for one, hooked up some monitors, connected a bunch of wires that must make sense to him cause to Peter they just look like a jumble of nonsense. Nonsense that's hooked up to the Ravager that's currently trying to look at him from the corner of his eye.

"Still alive?" Peter asks, shuffling into the room.

Yondu hums, "Yeah, seems like."

Peter doesn't say 'Good', but he nods. He stands just inside the doorway and considers Yondu lying prone on the bed. Turns out nearly freezing and suffocating to death in the vacuum of space isn't all that great for one's internals. Kraglin and that tractor beam came at just the right moment. Peter figures Yondu's inside looks like his outside.

Once upon a time Peter wouldn't be able to recall ever seeing the Ravager captain laid low. No matter what they threw themselves at Yondu always seemed to have the upper hand, with a smirk and a whistle. When he first got abducted - can it call it that now? he doesn't know how to feel about all that just yet, so he shoves it aside - when he first got abducted Yondu loomed larger than the rest of the crew, no matter how huge they were, no matter how sharp their teeth. Yondu had a way of letting you know he was the one to kowtow to.

And here he was, lying in sickbay. Peter still feels edgy.

"What you doing out of bed boy?" Yondu grumbles, voice sounding thin and that just needles Peter further.

"Making sure you haven't kicked the bucket while I'm napping." Peter replies, wanting to sound flippant but it comes out sounding more upset than he likes.

Yondu gives a gravelly laugh and shifts on the bed, makes like he wants to sit up and gives it up when it looks like the energy flies right out of him. Peter crosses the room, still heavy footed and delicate. A hazy version of himself feels a stab of embarrassment for letting his captain - former captain - see him like this. Weakness and Ravager pride don't go hand in hand.

"Can't even let me rest in peace can you? Always were such a nuisance." Yondu says with a hint of a grin. He's missing his jacket and his boots. The blanket that Mantis supplied trying to be helpful has been thrown off to the ground.

"You? Get peace? Fuck that." Peter says and sits down slowly on a set of drawers by the bed.

"What a fucking pest." Yondu laughs, eyes closed. Peter looks out past him, out the small porthole window to the sea of stars beyond. The moment stretches out and Peter listens to their out of sync breathing, eyes trained on the stars so he doesn't have to look at Yondu.

"Always such a pest." Yondu mutters, eyes still closed when Peter finally looks back down to him. "Running around the ship, screaming like a maniac about talking ships and Pac-y men. Fighting every damn man on this rig. Stealing my goddamn arrow." He says this last bit with a particular bite, like it's funnier now than it was at the time.

Peter grins because it _is_ funnier now than it was. He'd been 13 and a shithead preteen and bolder than any Terran on a Ravager ship should be. He'd had the thing for all of 20 minutes, holed up in a crawlspace he was fond of and his face in a hour long scowl about whatever thing Yondu had done to set him off. It only took one whistle, even though Peter wrapped the thing in a tactical jacket that was made to withstand lasers and bullets. It exploded out of his hands leaving two long burn marks across his palms. Yondu wasn't even all that mad, really, considering Peter never had a chance of holding onto it anyway. Peter never did try that again.

"Playing that Terran music endlessly. Always the same damn songs..." Yondu's eyes open at that and he makes to sit up again.

"Hey hey, what you doing old man? Goddamn...lungs gonna pop out of your mouth."

"Shut up boy." Yondu says as he leans over the side of the bed, scrounging around in his jacket pocket. "I'm still feeling congenial since we saved the galaxy and all, but I got a feeling it ain't gonna last long."

Peter scrunches his face and nods, "Not the least bit surprised."

Yondu chucks something red at Peter as he lays back on the bed. Peter fumbles with it for a second before he gets a good look at it. It's a little red device with a set of headphones wrapped around it. The white letters say 'Zune'.

"Found that at a market couple cycles ago. Guy selling it says it holds 300 songs."

"300- 300 songs?" Peter asks in shock. Even listening back to back the Awesome mixes were only 26 songs. 300 songs...he could listen to that for like, 3 hours or something. Whatever, he'll do the math later.

"Don't know what's on it, least it won't be that pineapple song for the trillionth time."

"Yondu...thank you." Peter unwinds the headphones and starts pressing buttons. The little screen lights up and starts scrolling through a, to Peter, seemingly endless list of songs. He can't help but frown a little though. "Ego smashed my cassette player. And the mix tape."

"Sorry boy," Yondu says, sounding actually sorry, another color he never figured he'd see on him. Today's a day for miracles Peter figures. "Know your mama gave you that."

Peter coughs to hide how he's starting to choke up, throat getting tight thinking about all the things he just couldn't hold onto. He looks back down at the Zune.

"Alright, shove over." He says getting up off the set of drawers and making to sit down on the bed.

"Hell you doing?" Yondu asks, blue face twisted in confusion.

"Move over, come on big guy." Yondu does manage to shuffle over just enough for Peter to sit down with his legs stretched out in front of him. Not the most comfortable position but hell, to his bruised and battered self it feels like downy pillows.

"Cozy?" Yondu asks, shaking his head - but not shoving him off, Peter notes.

"Oh very much." Peter continues playing with the buttons on the new music player til he gets the hang of it and scrolls through the new vast array of songs. He can't help but smirk when he lands on one in particular. Cat Stevens, huh. He remembers his mom playing him, on that giant record player in the living room, twirling around in her colorful dresses as she made him breakfast. Peter peering over the back of the couch watching her.

Yondu gives him a much more appropriate Yondu-look when Peter offers him one of the tiny little ear speakers. "Sure you don't got more brain damage than they were saying?"

Peter chuckles, "You were the one out there sucking up space. Though considering all that touchy feely stuff you said I'm thinking you got hit on the head somewhere in that cavern."

"Yeah well, I'm considering taking it all back right about now you little shit."

Peter grins, happy to hear Yondu fall back into familiar rhythms. Hell, even calling him 'little' when he's got at least 6 inches on him - well, not including the fin. How Peter didn't see this whole 'dad' thing coming is starting to surprise him. They're practically All in the Family.

He closes his eyes as the song starts playing and it's like the first time he ever played Mom's Awesome Mix. It's something he feels down to his fingertips. He relaxes against the wall, the new little headphones making it feel like the song is going straight through to his brain. He starts to zone out, feeling lightyears more at ease than he had before.

That is until he's jolted out of it by Rocket slamming through the door and shouting "The hell you doing here Quill?"

Peter looks down at Yondu instead of answering. Yondu's still got his eyes closed so Peter nudges him a little with an elbow. "Still alive?"

"Yep." comes the grunted response.

"You got your own bedroom, the hell you need to be here for?" Rocket grouses at him, then gestures to the other side of the room, "Hell there's a whole other bed right there!"

"I'm not hurting him." Peter snaps, pressing pause but not bothering to take out his headphones.

"And you're screwing up all my hard work. Look you're sitting on these wires!" Rocket's snarling at him, fussing around with the cords connected to the monitors. Yondu's got his hand covering his eyes, like this time he's got a headache brewing.

"Sorry, I wanted to check on him!" Peter says with exaggerated emphasis, "He's not just _your_ dad now you know."

This makes all of Rocket's fur stand on end and earns him a downright murderous glare. And a very pained groan from Yondu.

"Yeah," Peter says, turning to him, "You kind of brought that on yourself."

The next groan is even louder and more aggravated. Peter just smiles.

"What I wanted to show _Yondu_ ," Rocket growls, ditching the cords and pulling out a video monitor and walking to Yondu's side of the bed, "is this message we just got from the Ravagers. From Stakar."

Yondu finally drops his hand and shuffles to sit up, Peter stiffens watching him and can see Rocket do the same. But Yondu reaches out for the monitor, insisting Rocket show him.

"I called them after everything, told them what you'd done. For the galaxy, and Quill."

Yondu presses play, not bothering to hide the smile that's broken out on his face, and Rocket crawls up on a shelf to watch it over his shoulder. Stakar's voice starts to fill the small room but Peter turns back to his Zune. He presses play on Cat again as he vaguely hears Rocket ask Yondu something and Yondu reply dismissively "Naw, leave him, he's ok."

He drifts off to the dreamy acoustic melody, finally feeling pretty damn at peace.


End file.
